Home for Christmas

This year our carol services and Christmas events will be picking up the theme “Home for Christmas” (cue Chris Rea and Cliff Richard backing tracks).

The theme picks up on four threads:

1.We often associate Christmas sentimentally with the image of family getting together at home. The home is warm and inviting, a Christmas Tree in the corner, stockings hanging over a fireplace with a roaring log fire. Yet how many people will really be “at home?” Often Christmas and New Year provide the focal point for family tensions and feuds. Meanwhile many in our communities will be on their own and lonely.

2.This focus on home is also a stark reminder that many in our neighbourhoods are a long way from home. Here in Bearwood we will be sharing Christmas with asylum seekers who are a long way from home seeking refuge from torture and abuse, economic migrants who have moved to escape hardship in search of a better life, those who are currently homeless and living on the streets, and many others who find themselves living in the big city away from home towns and villages. Some may have lived here for years but still feel displaced.

3.Christmas reminds us that God the Son left his home in glory to make his dwelling place with us.

4.Christmas reminds us that the very reason Christ came was so that we could be reconciled to him. We now look forward to the promised day when he will return having prepared an eternal home for us.

We look forward to seeing you at one of our Christmas Events. These include:

Why Jesus came – Messy Church (3rd December at 4pm)

Carols by Candlelight (17th December ,6pm)

Family Carols (24th December 4pm)

Christmas Eve Carols (café stlye (24th December 7pm).

Christmas Day Family Service (10:30am).

If you or someone you know will be alone on Christmas Day, let us know and we will link them up with Nueva Vida who are once again providing a Christmas Dinner at the Chapel.